J. F. Campbell Collection > Minstrelsy of the Scottish border > Volume 2

174 MINSTRELSY OF
" over, that she thought it changed, and none of her
" child. The old man, whom years had rendered more
" prudent in such matters, told her, to find out the
" truth, she should make a clear fire, sweep the hearth
" very clean, and place the child fast in his chair, that
" he might not fall, before it, and break a dozen eggs,
«* and place the four-and-twenty half-shells before it ;
" then go out, and listen at the door : for, if the child
" spoke, it was certainly a changeling ; and then she
" should carry it out, and leave it on the dunghill to
" cry, and not to pity it, till she heard its voice no more.
" The woman, having done all things according to these
" words, heai-d the child say, ' Seven years old was I
" before I came to the nurse, and four years have I lived
" since, and never saw so many milk pans before.' So
'' the woman took it up, and left it upon the dunghill
" to cry, and not to be pitied, till at last she thought the
" voice went up into the air ; and coming, found there
" her own natural and well-favoured child." — Grose's
Provincial Glossari/, quoted from " A Pleasant Treatise
on Witchcraft."
The most minute and authenticated account of an ex-
changed child is to be found in Waldron's Isle ofMati,
a book from which I have derived much legendary in-
formation. " I was prevailed upon myself," says that
author, " to go and see a child, who, they told me, was
" one of these changelings, and, indeed, must own, was
'■' not a little surprised, as well as shocked, at the sight.
** Nothing under heaven could have a more beautiful